Politics and Society: Discrimination in the Workplace

Trigger warning: If this doesn't agitate you to some extent or even straight up piss you off then there is something wrong with you... so if you were having a wonderful day without a gripe in the world and would like to remain so (ignorance is bliss) then be warned, reading on might and should disrupt  that blissful mood.

The Issue

I work for a major tech company, those that know me personally know which one, but I'd like to refrain from calling them out specifically in this post as they are, for the most part, acting in the same manner as most tech companies these days. Let me just say that if you are reading this on a computer then you've heard of them. The management of this fortune 500 company has permitted identity politics to taint the appropriate reward and recognition of those that have brought the most fruit to bear as the company continues to post record earnings and profits. In short, they have implemented a policy of promoting individuals with the primary emphasis on group membership, specifically they will promote women over men, Latinos over Europeans, and so on simply because they are women or Latinos even when such individuals have not performed on par with their male or European counterpart.

Disbelief

Many of us have heard of this going on in some other companies, but I must admit that part of me wanted to deny that it would go this far where I am currently employed. I suppose I lied to myself and convinced myself that my employer would apply logic and reason and remain as neutral as possible in the arena of intersectionality and virtue signaling. I believed that it was likely that, using the cases above, that a woman or ethnic minority would be favored for hire or promotion only when their skills and achievements were on par with others. Even then, as a classic liberal, I believed as most of us do, that race, gender, and religion should have nothing to do with a individual's employability and as such this policy left a bad taste in my mouth. But I understood the corporation's decision to implement such a policy as the pressures of political correctness in the sphere of public relations could not go unaddressed. And so I have begrudgingly gone along with it, that was until the last couple of weeks, and to be honest if I look back to the beginning of the year I should have seen it coming.

The Red Pill

At the beginning of the year my employer announced our yearly bonuses and gave us some details. While making all of us happy by announcing that recent tax reforms passed by Washington would add a large chunk of change to next year's bonuses, they also informed us that the yearly bonus for 2017 hit all performance indicators except one... diversity hiring and promoting. In doing so they have financially incentivized management to discriminate hiring and promoting decisions based on race and biological sex. This is the definition of sexism and racism. Even after this, part of me was still in denial, I believed they would still weigh merit as the primary factor and group membership (race, gender, etc.) as a secondary.
Last week in our monthly staff meeting my manager informed my team that the yearly review process had been completed, most of us had already met with him and received our reviews. Our team is pretty diverse, 27% female, 9% Chinese, 9% Latino, 27% European/Caucasian, 55% Indian and our manager is Chinese... at this point I think this is worth mentioning, particularly that our female representation is higher than the percentage of graduates with relevant degrees (~18%). The team had several questions about the review process but there was one particular item revealed that is relevant to this topic and that is when the process is done the decisions are sent to upper management for review and if there are not enough individuals who qualify as "diversity" getting promoted then the proposals are rejected. The managers then have to go back and promote someone based on their group identity/membership over someone else whom had earned the promotion based on merit. I was shocked, but a still a bit in denial. Until this week, I ran into another employee of this corporation that is a manager within another group. This person was upset as after finishing their focal process and submitting to upper management because it was rejected based the gender of the proposed promotion. The promotion of a male employee based on 3-4 years of the individual working towards it (merit) was declined because upper management needed more females to be promoted in order to hit bonus-related goals. Yes folks we are putting money and image ahead of ethics. I asked a bit more about the situation, particularly was it merited for the female employee to be promoted as well (i.e. performance parity)? What I was told was that she had been promoted last year, so no. To be clear, back to back promotions are practically unheard of and they are discouraged because it does not really allow the employee enough time in their new grade to determine if the increased roles and responsibilities are being properly met. There are a lot of excuses that we can think up to attempt to justify these decisions but at the end of the day we all know that if gender was not a factor the change in whom gets promoted would not have been made. The guy had accomplishments and merit on his side and in my friend's words he had outperformed his peers, including the woman.

The Impact

This is bad for the company in many ways. The individuals that get denied the promotion in this manner will know what's going on without anyone having to tell them, heck it is in the clearly communicated company policy, our bonuses are dependent on this discrimination! So one of two or more things will happen with this employee, they may stop trying so hard or they will leave and work for another company. We have already determined that this person's work is worthy of promotion so it is a loss of talent either way.
The person who instead receives the promotion is going to know that it has a lot to do with her group membership as a female and less to do with the quality of her work, effectively communicating that without such preference based on sex she could not otherwise compete with her male counterpart... that's sexism. If this does not trouble her had she accepts this form of discrimination in her favor then she may not try as hard at her job knowing that simply because she is a woman that she can do just "good enough" and retain employment. This is also bad for the company.

The Irony, WTF?

Long ago we, Americans, established that it is not good for a company to promote men over women simply because they are men. That it is not good for a company to promote white people over black people simply because they are white. Reason dictates that a person's individual merits and talents should be the only weighed factors in determining employability. Why have liberals abandoned this principle? Do they not see the harm that is being done by such practices? Why is this so readily accepted by corporations, particularly one that is full of individuals most would describe as intellectuals? I can answer that last question, it is because we are intimidated into compliance in what amounts to a hostile work environment, a policy that far-lefters would call a form of violence. It is because one giant tech company already made an example of one of their employees whom, after being invited to share his thoughts was fired for doing so (hint). So no one speaks up, especially those that have people depending on them (children, etc.), because future employment in this industry is also at risk if you are fired for what they will call discrimination. Oh the hypocrisy...